United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz took personal responsibility for an incident last month in which a passenger was battered and dragged from a flight, telling a congressional hearing, "We had a horrible failure three weeks ago."

Munoz again apologized personally to David Dao, the passenger who boarded a United plane and then refused to give up his seat when the airline determined that it have overbooked the flight. Police were summoned and Dao, 69, was dragged bloodied from the flight, an incident that was captured on video by another passenger.

"I was going to ask, why do you hate the American people?" Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif. asked.House Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Shuster, R-Pa., said "there's something clearly broken when passengers have been treated the way they have," and he warned that if airlines to not take steps to reform their passenger policies, Congress would "and I can assure you, you won't like the outcome."

Ranking committee member Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., said passenger rights have gotten short shrift as the industry has consolidated into four major carriers who handled 80 percent of flights. DeFazio said that 40,000 ticketed passengers were bumped from their flights last year."Very few passengers have any idea what their rights are," DeFazio said.

Related

"We called law enforcement when a safety or security issue did not exist," he said. "We rebooked crew at the very last minute. We didn't offer enough compensation or travel options to incentives a passenger to give up a seat. And, most important, our employees did not have the authority to do what was right for our customers."

Munoz said United would now offer up to $10,000 in flight vouchers to give up an overbooked seat. He also said that no passenger who have been seated would be asked to leave the airplane.Munoz was joined by United President Scott Kirby, who defended over booking as necessary in some situations.

"We view over booking where we can incentivize a customer to take an alternative flight as a win-win situation for both the airline and those customers," Kirby said, "and 96 percent of the incidents where we have an over booking we were able to get customers to be volunteers [to take another flight]. And in today's world, where we're increasing the compensation to $10,000, we hope to drive that down to zero."

Since the April 9 incident in Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, three airport officers have been suspended for the handling of Dao. Late last month, Dao reached a settlement with United.The incident was followed by a second video taped disruption on April 21. That event involved a confrontation between an American Airlines flight attendant who tried to pull a baby stroller away from a passenger who was holding her baby. As the video shows, the woman was in tears when the flight attendant turned on a passenger who tried to intervene, encouraging the passenger to strike him.

American Airlines publicly apologized in the aftermath, removed the flight attendant from service and upgraded the woman and her family to first class for the balance of her international flight.united

Translator

To read this article in one of Houston's most-spoken languages, click on the button below.